S Lotzer

I love it, but...

Reviewed: 2021-02-11

I feel like it is important for any prospective readers to understand that this is not a 'novel' in the sense of most novels, that it has a beginning, middle and end and is plotted out to fit that mould. The Wandering Inn was originally (and remains to be) a Fantasy-LitRPG web novel that has very graciously been made into an audiobook, but that means that its formatting is quite different from other books. As of writing this review, it has over 25,000 pages and 6.7 million words- and while the audiobook and ebook versions have, I believe, been edited somewhat by the author since they were originally written, the story itself was never created in the same vein as a traditional novel or series.

Due to this formatting difference, you might feel as though the first volume of this novel has loose ends, focuses on characters that have little impact on the story, has little character growth or too little exposition; however, I feel that these issues mainly stem from the fact that this is a long-form style of writing. There is not too much thought put towards spelling things out for the readers through exposition as it is assumed that the world will unfold itself as you progress through the story, much like if you were to play a game of Dungeons and Dragons. The characters' growth and development will take longer as we don't skip through time with them to major events but rather experience the minutiae of their everyday lives, which means that their development will occur over a longer period of time.

The author has been writing this story since 2016, and there are currently 7 Volumes (so 7 approx 40-60 hour-long audiobooks hopefully!) written with the 8th underway- if you are looking for immediate satisfaction and answers to the world and the characters in this first volume then this might not be the audiobook for you (I mean, it's 43 hours long to start.) But if you are looking for something with incredibly detailed world-building, engaging and sometimes ridiculous characters, and unique mysteries that you are willing to wait a long time to see unravelled, then this is the story for you. If you like D&D, SAO, or Fantasy-LitRPG's, I highly recommend giving this a shot. If you like strong female characters that are relatable and aren't just a male character in a female body, this could be the story for you; alternately if you like male characters that have strength in a myriad of ways, this has those as well. If you like the typical hero's journey being turned on its head, reluctant heroes, dragons, humanoid species of creatures that are not humans, and monsters- The Wandering Inn has you covered.

There is magic and mundane, there are battles and slice-of-life moments, there are really smart characters and, admittedly, really dumb characters. I implore you to give this story a chance if any of the things listed above interest you because this series has become one of my favourite pieces of fantasy literature and I think that as many people as possible should have the chance to experience it.

All that being said, I love the narrator that was chosen for the audiobook. Considering there are a LOT of unique characters and different races of humanoids to characterize, her approach has really blown me away, especially with the Antinium characters. I honestly don't think anyone else could have done a better job.

Finally, give Erin and Ryoka a chance. They can be really frustrating sometimes, but their growth does happen- Ryoka specifically I find has a lot of growth in Volume 2. The fact that the novel still has a large following after nearly FIVE YEARS should- in my opinion- be a solid recommendation in and of itself.

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